Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with recurrent depression/anxiety...
by geocrasher on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @05:50PM
(#34167095)
Awareness. You need to start keeping a log of the events preceding an episode. Give no regard to the scientific method or anything, just start writing them down. Once you have a solid collection (however many that is to you) then start re-reading them and look for common threads. The hardest part of this is being brutally honest with yourself.
Also, as another commenter said, professional help is gold. If you have access to it. If you don't, then you should explore ways to get such access. I dealt with debilitating depression in the past, and ended up getting care from government-run facilities. They were excellent.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with recurrent depression/anxiety...
by airbreather on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @07:35PM
(#34167996)
Check out some of Andrew Huberman's stuff on youtube - he is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford and has some info about groundbreaking ideas and treatments that might be useful.
Some people have been helped by things like changes in diet.
YMMV and personal professional supervision should always be sought for serious matters.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with recurrent depression/anxiety...
by hayst4ck on Thursday December 29, 2022 @01:07AM
(#34170043)
I journal-ed daily with an app that asked you to rate each day from 1-10 and write a small blurb.
It was extremely clear what my triggers were. The sustained changes of mood were very clearly visibly graphed and the blurbs, even with almost no effort at all applied to writing them (many were just: "ok day"), made it very clear what the inflection points were.
I was very surprised just how much the results of a single day can change the subjective day to day experience for weeks without being consciously aware of the single days happenings that caused the change.
Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with recurrent depression/anxiety...
by maxrf on Thursday December 29, 2022 @04:09AM
(#34170881)
If you're familiar with CBT, MBCT may help with the triggers by giving space when they happen [ https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/mindfu... ]
I was lucky that a marriage counsellor was a clinical psychologist who had her own history too. I already knew the root cause but had no way to recognise triggers as they happened. Both some exploration in a safe environment and mbct practice gave me a 'thread back out' when overwhelmed. With time, I've come to be able to analyse the link and 'touch' the trigger's cause to reformulate for myself.
There's a book for clinicians, I found the 1st edition useful, not sure what's changed in the update [ https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy-D... ]
My daughter came to follow-up sessions, at 10 she would comment positively - that too helped.
Best luck with your journey.
Also, as another commenter said, professional help is gold. If you have access to it. If you don't, then you should explore ways to get such access. I dealt with debilitating depression in the past, and ended up getting care from government-run facilities. They were excellent.
Some people have been helped by things like changes in diet.
YMMV and personal professional supervision should always be sought for serious matters.
It was extremely clear what my triggers were. The sustained changes of mood were very clearly visibly graphed and the blurbs, even with almost no effort at all applied to writing them (many were just: "ok day"), made it very clear what the inflection points were.
I was very surprised just how much the results of a single day can change the subjective day to day experience for weeks without being consciously aware of the single days happenings that caused the change.